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Quad core android tablets coming fall 2011. Can apple keep up?
- Thread starter henrikrox
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I know they work well. I also know people here and IRL that blindly buy anything Apple makes and defend all of Apple's business practices, if Apple doesn't sell it, you don't need it.
Can we please have a separate forum for these stupid "iPad suxxors android is awezomes" threads? Seriously its up to like 20+ a day.
OP please go to the android forums if you want to talk android so badly. Frankly I come here to read about Apple stuff.
OP please go to the android forums if you want to talk android so badly. Frankly I come here to read about Apple stuff.
I think you guys are missing the OP's main point.
He is saying that the electronics manufacturers who are currently pushing the envelope and trying new things/better hardware are currently NOT Apple.
Nothing to worry about today, but tomorrow or 1.5 years from now...? Apple might eventually fall behind again like they did in the desktop market.
He is saying that the electronics manufacturers who are currently pushing the envelope and trying new things/better hardware are currently NOT Apple.
Nothing to worry about today, but tomorrow or 1.5 years from now...? Apple might eventually fall behind again like they did in the desktop market.
hence the reason why more people are buying more Android devices over the past 2 years and iPhones have been out at least 2x as long? It's only a matter of time till the iPad (1+2) will suffer the same fate. Apple came out first with a mostly crippled tablet, using an existing OS (iOS) just just a larger touch screen (a larger iPhone w/no transmitter).
While collectively there are more options for Android devices over iStuff, the point is, people are chosing those devices and not iStuff.
I'm sorry but fanboyism aside.. facts are facts. The iOS offers a great experience, and the App store offers a rich environment of apps, 90% of which are useless. The hardware nor its design isn't innovative at all anymore. Apple is too focused on selling stuff in iTunes more than they are trying to be leaders. Mac Pro, MBP, MB, Final Cut Studio.. the list goes on.
Yeah Apple's stuff "works", but so does its competitors.. and their stuff is starting to work better. Apple needs to regroup.
People are choosing those devices over iStuff because until recently, iStuff wasn't available on the US's largest carrier. Nor is it available in most of China.
What hardware innovation has Andriod done lately ?
Ask Atom Ink users and Nexus S users how well their stuff works. To refresh, people preordered the Ink, were charged and then many months later (around six if I am not mistaken ) finally got delivery. They were told to update at power on, and then had a brick. Nexus S reboots during calls. (A fix is due out soon, of not already available ).
And now goto the Verizon website. Check out the Xoom. Says Flash enabled browser, but the small print at the bottom says won't do flash until spring.
Of course with the Nexus S, I see this as a feature, ex wife calls, phone reboots.
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I still don't get the point. Should someone start the hand-wringing or something?
iPhones have been out at least 2x as long so they've already hit an initial plateau in their market. Also, I posted this elsewhere, but it bears repeating:
What difference does it make if Android OS share (or sales) increased versus iPad market share (or sales)? It tells me very little about the cause of consumer demand, because one OS is a 'free-rider' and one is strongly tied to hardware. It says nothing about whether people 'prefer' or 'choose' Android since they may have made their choice on other grounds irrespective of OS. The unit of selection is the whole good or service which people buy, and people do not buy stand-alone OSs in the tablet market.
Your comparison is useful for developers and investors, but it says nothing about the demand for or the quality of the OS, since that's not the unit at which the consumer selects. For the purposes of your current argument, comparing iPad to Android is spurious.
iPad continues to define and dominate the market; it's the reference point for all other manufacturers, and iPad sales eclipse those of any other tablet. This might change, oh no, wow, whatever.
The only way I think Apple could fall behind on tablets is if they keep the current model for another year without any changes, and in that time it will still outsell anything else on the market by a large margin. It will take a while for any competitor to get established and build a strong user base. I don't think Apple will rest on its laurels. Android as a whole may overtake iOs on phones and tablets, but it won't be one singe manufacturer with this dominance. IMHO.
Can developer catchup? Making apps for dual core requires them to update their tools. EA got advantage because they are making games for consoles. They could make games for quad core. It would be premature to jump to quad without figuring out to optimize an os for that. Doubt we will see it this year.
Nobody is really pushing the envelop. They are all simply buying ready-made SoC made by big component suppliers that are widely available to everyone. Apple is unique in the sense that they do their own SoC design but really, they are all about the same tech curve-wise since they are limited by what ARM and fabs can do. If anything in the mobile sector so far Apple has usually stayed nearer to the leading edge.
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the bet part about the tablet is its all day, on the go battery life...put in a quad core and you need a bigger battery, which means more weight and less portability or shorter battery life...just because they can make it doesn't mean its better for the task at hand. Now when they release these cpus at a lower power consumption, then it will be interesting but until then the 1ghz single core in the current ipad does a great job at keeping everything smooth. Can't really say that about googles OS!
the bet part about the tablet is its all day, on the go battery life...put in a quad core and you need a bigger battery, which means more weight and less portability or shorter battery life...just because they can make it doesn't mean its better for the task at hand. Now when they release these cpus at a lower power consumption, then it will be interesting but until then the 1ghz single core in the current ipad does a great job at keeping everything smooth. Can't really say that about googles OS!
Apple needs to regroup ??? Are you serious. Record quarter after record quarter. PC sales declining while Mac sales are rising.
And starting to work better. How exactly are they working better. Is the iPad not working all of the sudden. The majority of users are more interested in usability, the apps they can get and how well it all works together. Apples products do that exceptionally well. Talk to the average user and most will tell you that Android is getting confusing. Where is the best place to get apps. How do I upgrade my Android phone. Why are all of the screen different. These are questions I hear people asking when talking about Android devices. With Apple products, you get the apps from the app store and Apple updates the devices that can handle the new features regardless of where you buy them. The look and feel is consistent across their product lines. I think the other companies need to regroup not Apple.
Speed?
"Speedy" isn't the number specifying the clock speed of the CPU/GPU.
"Speedy" is how I, as an end user, might percieve the interface and the functionality it allows for, i.e. how well the software utilizes the hardware, combined with a GUI that works well.
If the iPad/iOS could achieve the same speed/functionality as the current gen on a 286, should I even care what hardware powers the device? (Apart from what it should mean to product price, that is)
Apple is in a very special position, PR-wise. Specifying numbers is for the detailed spec sheet, not for the headlines. Competing companies might have to use those spec sheet numbers as a key factor in their PR, meaning that a customer will then have to decipher what it will all mean to their user experience.
To me that very thing is a PR problem for Android now. Not that apps might/might not work as well on a lower end device as it will on the premium Android device for the moment, but what the potential buyer thinks of one device having a greater number than the previous one in a specific area. (There are a *lot* of Android devices availble.) It creates confusion. "Faster is faster, right?" Not necessarily.
Add to this that companies sometimes add their own custom GUI on top of Android and numbers will mean even less if that custom GUI (hypothetically) usurps all that extra power/memory available.
Of course, clueless sales people doesn't exactly help the situation (that's the case far too often here in Sweden, at least).
"Speedy" isn't the number specifying the clock speed of the CPU/GPU.
"Speedy" is how I, as an end user, might percieve the interface and the functionality it allows for, i.e. how well the software utilizes the hardware, combined with a GUI that works well.
If the iPad/iOS could achieve the same speed/functionality as the current gen on a 286, should I even care what hardware powers the device? (Apart from what it should mean to product price, that is)
Apple is in a very special position, PR-wise. Specifying numbers is for the detailed spec sheet, not for the headlines. Competing companies might have to use those spec sheet numbers as a key factor in their PR, meaning that a customer will then have to decipher what it will all mean to their user experience.
To me that very thing is a PR problem for Android now. Not that apps might/might not work as well on a lower end device as it will on the premium Android device for the moment, but what the potential buyer thinks of one device having a greater number than the previous one in a specific area. (There are a *lot* of Android devices availble.) It creates confusion. "Faster is faster, right?" Not necessarily.
Add to this that companies sometimes add their own custom GUI on top of Android and numbers will mean even less if that custom GUI (hypothetically) usurps all that extra power/memory available.
Of course, clueless sales people doesn't exactly help the situation (that's the case far too often here in Sweden, at least).
At the end of the day, tablets (just like any other tech) will get more and more powerful, with more hardware features and whatnot. This is fact, and so not worth arguing over. So Xoom comes out with "better specs" than the iPad or even iPad 2...so what? It's a product of the same era - in 5 years time, both will appear crap and slow compared to what is out at that time, yet nothing will change the fact that it's mainly about the interface and apps that run on the device. Fact.
So Apple is falling behind Tablets that aren't even released yet?
How can Apple keep up? Name one CURRENT credible alternative to iPad that is eroding it's lead.
Sure, Zoom may be good and HP may be good but they havent even hit the market quite yet. Maybe we ought to see how they fare AND how Apple responds before we worry about the following generation of speculative products.
How can Apple keep up? Name one CURRENT credible alternative to iPad that is eroding it's lead.
Sure, Zoom may be good and HP may be good but they havent even hit the market quite yet. Maybe we ought to see how they fare AND how Apple responds before we worry about the following generation of speculative products.
Unfortunately that argument utterly misses the point of computers in the modern era. Put simply, the vast majority of computer users do not NEED high end hardware and would see very little benefit from it even if they had it. Apple understand this and have made it a point in the last few years to step away from the clock speed / core / latest geeky thril ride race and focus on other areas such as battery life and, dare I say, style. Yes, style, hence Apple's insistence on using laptop parts in the iMac range. They could have built faster or cheaper machines by using desktop parts but they wouldn't have looked as good or been so quiet. The results speak for themselves, Apple are utterly dominating their market segment and as that market segment happens to be the high end and high profit margain space I think it's fair to say it's been a successful stratergy.
The same will be true in the tablet market. Quad core processors are interesting but until there's software that takes advantage of them they're almost utterly pointless and potentialy expensive. 'Better' hardware doesn't make a product succesful, in fact it can have just the opposite effect as it has the potential to increase costs and reduce battery life (not to mention cause design issues with heat, chip size etc).
I hate to say this but more and more I'm beginning to think geeks are loosing their grasp on the reality of the tech world. This isn't the 90's (or early 2000's) anymore where each hardware improvement brought noticeable improvements to even the humblest of users. We've reached a point where the raw power of the hardware is, by and large, utterly irrelevant providing it delivers a smooth user experience. Computers are focusing more and more on simplicity, ease of use and design with what we've traditionaly thought of as a computer (i.e. the hardware and OS) largely getting out of the way. Worse, geeks are becoming ever more difficult to please and demanding more and more performance for their money. It's not that hard to imagine a future not too far from now where the geek market is eclipsed by the mass market to such a point companies start turning away en mass.
Been watching this happen since about 2003. Linux had a real shot at being a desktop competitor way back when. There was even a movement to stop the tech side of things for a bit while the UI was brought up to at least Near Apple standards. And it was starting to pay off. And MS wasn't making a damn thing worth buying. I really thought Linux had a shot...
...for about a month. Then all the devs went off to tune their apps up, or get into wars about how many tabs their browser of choice could open at once or something. Current Linux users started complaining that the UI was getting "dumbed down" too much. Mandrake Linux, the user friendly version at the time stopped developing all the things that made it more user friendly than windows and competing with Macs, and lost its way. Don't know anyone who still uses it. Sad days.
Geeks are making themselves irrelevant, obsessing over clock speed and what number of ports device "foo" has compared to device "bar". The future of computing is headed Apples way, and the techies aren't seeing that usability trumps some port that most people can't name.
